Home-game tool
Poker Settlement Calculator — Who Pays Who
Enter each player's buy-ins and cash-out. The calculator checks that the money balances, then works out the fewest payments to settle up — ready to paste into the group chat. Or paste a PokerNow ledger and it fills the table for you.
Players
Settlement plan
2 payments settles the whole game (never more than 3 for 4 players):
- Bob pays Alice$20.00
- Carol pays Alice$15.00
Poker night settlement Total bought in: $100.00 · Cashed out: $100.00 Results: Alice: +$35.00 Bob: -$20.00 Carol: -$15.00 Dan: $0.00 Who pays who (2 payments): Bob pays Alice $20.00 Carol pays Alice $15.00 via pokerpro.tools/tools/settlement-calculator
Guide
How to settle a poker home game without arguments
The end of a home game is where friendships go to die: everyone's tired, the chip counts don't add up, and nobody wants to be the person chasing a $12 debt on Tuesday. This tool turns the pile of buy-ins and cash-outs into the shortest possible list of payments. Here is exactly how it works and how to run a clean settlement.
What this calculator does
You enter what each player put in (buy-in plus any rebuys or add-ons) and what they left with (their final chip count in dollars). The tool computes each player's net result— cash-out minus buy-in — and then finds the fewest transfers that make everyone whole. Instead of nine people Venmo-ing each other in a tangle, you get a clean list like “Dan pays Alice $35.”
Who it's for
Anyone who hosts or plays in a cash home game — dealer's choice night, a weekly Hold'em game, an office tournament that pays out in cash, or an online PokerNow table where everyone owes real money at the end. If money changed hands and you need to work out who owes whom, this settles it in seconds.
The minimum-transfer math
Once you know every player's net, the debts always cancel to zero in aggregate — the winners are owed exactly what the losers owe. The naive way to settle is for every loser to pay every winner, which can mean dozens of tiny transfers. You don't need that. The calculator uses a greedy algorithm: it repeatedly takes the biggest debtor and the biggest creditor and moves as much as possible between them in a single payment. Each payment fully zeroes out at least one person, so for n players you never need more than n − 1 transfers.
Finding the theoretical absolute minimum (spotting subgroups whose debts happen to cancel) is an NP-hard problem, but in a real home game the greedy method hits that minimum almost every time — and it is always within one transfer of optimal. For a 9-handed game that typically means 3–5 payments instead of 20+.
When the totals don't balance
Money in must equal money out. When it doesn't, the tool flags the gap in red before it will produce a plan. Three things cause almost every mismatch:
- → A rebuy nobody wrote down — the most common culprit. Ask who topped up.
- → A miscounted final stack — recount the chips of anyone with an odd number.
- → Chips in a pocket — someone walked off with $5 in reds.
Recount first; it fixes most discrepancies. If the gap genuinely can't be traced, the auto-balance button scales every cash-out by the same proportion so the totals match. That spreads an untraceable error fairly across everyone rather than dumping it on the last player to count.
How to export a PokerNow ledger
If you play on PokerNow, you don't have to type anything. Two ways to get the ledger:
- 1. CSV download: open the game's Ledger panel and click the download button. It saves a CSV with
player_nickname,buy_in,buy_outandstackcolumns. - 2. JSON endpoint: visit
pokernow.club/games/YOUR-GAME-ID/ledgerin a browser tab and copy the response.
Paste either into the Paste PokerNow ledgertab. The parser reads names, buy-ins and cash-outs (including chips still on the table), aggregates multiple sessions per player, and fills the table. PokerNow ledgers are denominated in chips — if your game runs 100 chips to the dollar, tick the “chips are cents” box so a ledger showing 2500 becomes $25.00. Always sanity-check the totals row before you settle.
Settling cleanly, every time
- → Settle the same night while everyone is still in the room and the counts are fresh.
- → Losers initiate the transfers — it's faster and avoids winners nagging.
- → Post one shared summary so nobody relies on memory. That's what the copy button is for.
Frequently asked questions
How does the poker settlement calculator work?
Enter each player's buy-ins (plus rebuys) and final cash-out. The calculator computes every player's net result, checks that money in equals money out, then runs a greedy max-debtor-to-max-creditor algorithm that produces a payment plan with at most n−1 transactions for n players. You get a plain-text list — 'Dan pays Alice $35' — you can paste straight into the group chat.
What is the minimum number of payments needed to settle a poker game?
Never more than n−1 payments for n players, and that's what this calculator produces. Finding the absolute theoretical minimum is an NP-hard problem (it requires finding subgroups whose nets cancel exactly), but the greedy max-debtor-to-max-creditor method hits the true minimum in almost every real home game, and it never needs more than n−1 transfers.
Why don't my buy-ins and cash-outs balance?
The three usual suspects: a rebuy that never got written down, a miscounted final stack, or chips left in someone's pocket. Recount first — that fixes most of it. If the discrepancy can't be traced, the calculator offers a proportional adjustment: it scales every cash-out by the same factor so totals match, which spreads an untraceable error fairly instead of dumping it on one player.
How do I use a PokerNow ledger with this calculator?
In your PokerNow game, open the Ledger panel and download the ledger CSV, or open pokernow.club/games/YOUR-GAME-ID/ledger in a browser tab to get the JSON version. Paste either one into the PokerNow tab of this calculator — it reads player names, buy-ins, and cash-outs (including chips still on the table) and fills the table for you.
Why are my PokerNow amounts 100x too big?
PokerNow ledgers are denominated in chips, not dollars. Many games run 1 chip = 1 cent, so a ledger showing 2500 means $25.00. Tick the 'chips are cents' option before importing and the calculator divides everything by 100. If your game runs 1 chip = $1, leave it off. Either way, check the totals row before you settle.
What if two players owe each other money?
That situation never survives the netting step. The calculator works from each player's single net result, so mutual debts cancel automatically before any payments are computed — nobody ever pays someone who also pays them.
Does the calculator store my game data or names?
No. Everything is computed in your browser — no account, no upload, nothing leaves your device. Refresh the page and it's gone, so copy the settlement text to your group chat before you close the tab.
What's the fairest way to handle who pays who at a poker night?
Settle the same night while everyone's still there, losers initiate the transfers, and post one shared summary so nobody relies on memory. The copy-for-group-chat block this tool generates exists exactly for that: one message, every payment listed, no disputes on Tuesday.
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